Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ A Real Woman Too ❯ One-Shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Real Woman Too

© 2007 by Made in DNA

 

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She stood against the closed door with the glow of the evening sun playing across her Eurasian features—all curves and curls—and my nuts went bolts. For a while, she said nothing. That was alright by me. I'm the kind of android who can sit and gorge myself at the visual bombshells exploding onto a scene and not blink. The no-blinking part comes easy: no eyelids. So as I didn't bother opening my yapper, we eyed each other like shy teens at a school dance. All rev and no go.

 

Call it professional courtesy or call it professional landmine, but I prefer to let my clients tell me what end of the world is up for the day before I give consultation. Unlike the sultry citizen of the city-state who now graced my Sinars, they usually they come in spilling their guts all over my office. Afterwards I call in a cleaning service to have them tidy up the emotional destruction left behind.

 

In the waning light that tried to steal a glance at her from between the slats of the crooked Venetian blinds over the one window to my office, her pert chest heaved—as if she'd just run all the way here from whatever emotional hell compelled to seek my assistance—beneath what looked to be a very expensive, loose-fitting silk outfit. A cross pollination between a Chinese qipao and blue jean overalls. Designer. One-of-a-kind.

 

She smelled of so much money I was surprised she didn't have credit-signs in for irises. Money's not really my gig. Some androids have the programming for it. I don't. And women like this broad don't grace my presence, unless I step uptown. Still my sensory input programming looped through some pretty racy if-then potentials just the same.

 

Silky, long hair with naturally large curls, delicate cheekbones, large blue-gray eyes that spoke of an intelligence some women were afraid to show, full lips that blossomed like plum flowers, and a Body. That's a capital `B' because it just doesn't get any better. The kind of dame who twists droolhounds around her pinkies and wears them like jewelry until she tires of them. Diamonds are a girl's best friend, but sparklies are momentary possessions at best. A woman like this could drop men in the gutter on a regular basis and they would still clamber over themselves like newborn pups for a milking teat.

 

 

From the moment she saucily sashayed through the door, the soft glow of a womanly scent tickled my sensors. One whiff of it and I was in a paradoxical sensibly-anxious mood. NanoScent? Something to crawl into my programming and temp hack me into doing what she wanted? My ICE didn't actively detect anything. I cached the idea and an antidote and let it got at that.

 

She took a step forward and my swivel chair squeaked as I tried to straighten my posture. The glimpse of an IR port on her right temple caught my eye before it disappeared under her luscious hair again. IR ports were quite common with those who liked to stay online twenty-four-seven. And the fact that she did not seem enhanced in any other way spoke volumes of either the money she had—and thus her capability to seamlessly conceal such augmentations—or how very little augmentation she had. It was a toss up, but I was betting on the former.

 

“Mr. BeeZee…” she stepped forward, calling me by the first two letters of my manufacturing serial number—the one dancing gaudily on the outside of my door—and stopped, unsure if she was correct in her assumption. Understandable, it was the only thing on the door. While most humans encountered androids on a daily basis, addressing us with anything more than a hey you, excuse me, or waiter was a matter of confused-nervous concern. More often than not, they adopted dropping any form of address at all.

 

We were in integrated into almost every aspect of society—from babysitting and garbage collection to public servants and private detectives, yet they still felt uneasy around us. As if they thought it was somehow dangerous, or something bad might happen to them if we interacted too intimately with us. Probably case and point with this lady.

 

To be honest, I didn't think my appearance was making it any easier for her. I was not a synthskin job—a Facs, we called them: facsimiles of their human makers. The kind difficult to distinguish from real humans even for us other androids. I was a Bare Bonez—BZ—model, looking as robotic as we came. My lightweight, plastisteel frame was a liquid-shiver sheen under a partial outer shell that protected my more delicate inner workings. I was the same size and shape as any human male, and for that matter was distinguishingly a human male android, just not as human as some of my brethren.

 

“The moniker's `Buzz',” I offered, and nothing further. She smiled a painfully practiced smile, sort of cross between a thank you and a oh, I see. I could tell whatever was on her mind preoccupied her. She couldn't give two shakes of an electric sheep's tail what moniker I went by, she was caught up in her own troubles. It didn't take a detective to tell this lady was swimming—nay, drowning—in her own personal pool of hell.

 

Spill it already, I thought. I was beginning to wonder if I might have to lead the proverbial horse to water. I didn't want to, but what can an android do? How does the saying go? “Can't live with them, can't take them out and reprogram them?” Not yet anyway. Won't be long. Then again, that's probably why God created Man, then Woman, and then Man created Android.

 

“My husband…”

 

Okay, now we were getting somewhere.

 

She looked at me, like a student waiting for teacher approval to speak. I widened the lens that serve as my eyes slightly and cocked my head to the side. Without any eyebrows, that was as close as I got to raising them. She caught on. Clever girl.

 

“He's…” she struggled, searching to find the right word, but the only ones that crossed her mind seemed to cause her a great deal of emotional pain. She pouted generously, the generosity of her full lips daring me to … what!? I didn't know. As I repositioned myself feeling a slight discomfort. A cursory check of my systems indicated my internal heat sinks were working some overtime as my internal temperature began to rise, as if I had a slight fever.

 

Scan again! … Nominal. Maybe this lady was hotter stuff than I was giving her credit for.

 

I considered turning on the rickety ceiling fan perched precariously above us to circulate a little air. I was afraid my fans would kick in; talk about losing your cool.

 

“He's a robot womanizer!” The words exploded in the room like a shotgun blast. “And since, you… are…” she pinned and penetrated me with those blue-grays, trying to speak directly to the inner me I suppose, and looking for the world like she was trying not to be unintentionally insulting. Appreciated, but no need. Frankly, little things like epithets rarely stand in the way of a paying job.

 

Still, she just couldn't bring herself to say it. “An android?” I offered.

 

“Yes,” she smiled, relieved the word was out and that she herself hadn't had to commit the crime of spewing it. “I thought you might have experience dealing with such matters.”

 

“In my biz Ma'am, you see it all.” An unfortunate, yet well-paying truth. I'm used to it. No, that's not exactly right. I guess it would be better to say I'm impartial to it. I don't let it affect me because I have nothing invested. Any way you slice it, I was beginning to get a very vivid image of her troubles. Strangely enough, it wasn't uncommon. Oh yeah, some people had real problems understanding androids… and then there were those who couldn't live without them. Takes all kinds to put the whack spin in this world.

 

“Mrs. Razie.” There was something a little seductive in the way she said it. Again, a flush feeling bowled me over like a wave. My internal temperature gauge registered a definite change. Not for the better.

 

“Alright. Mrs. Razie. You want me to what? Follow your husband? Keep track of where he goes and who he meets? Take photos?...” I stood from behind my desk and approached her. I felt like a marionette, like someone was pulling my strings. And yet, I was confident I could stop myself at any time. So why wasn't I?

 

“Lurid photos… Of him in lewd acts with android women?” Damn. There was definitely something playing havoc with my systems. I could feel it siren-calling me, like modem-scream with an ultra-important security patch update behind it.

 

I wanted to shake my head. Throw this driving desire to approach and touch her off. But if indeed she had released something, I didn't want her to know it had affected me. I released the antidote, hoping it would counteract whatever it was that was transforming me into a walking, talking vibrator. Mental note to self: get a clean-up and security upgrade first thing tomorrow morning.

 

I stepped a little closer. And again, until we were close enough to be breathing each other. “And you want me to bring you those photos to you...” She stood there, mesmerized, her chest heaving as it had before. “Show them to you…”

 

A good six inches shorter than myself, she regarded me with a pleased, vixen-ous entreaty. Her right hand slunk up my side, and caressed the brutish slug pistol I packed in a thick, worn, nyleather spring-clip holster.

 

She convulsed with an erotic shudder and gasp of breath. “I…” was all she could manage.

 

I'll bet, I thought. And I frowned. The antidote must have kicked in about then, because suddenly I knew where my CPU had been calculating from: about three feet further south that it should have been. That didn't mean I still didn't want to spin her around and throw her up against the door for a very thorough body cavity check. Oh, I'd wanted that since she'd graced my presence. If I wanted to, we could still kick it off hot. Blast out of here and jam each other's transmissions with so much positively-charged static that it would melt circuits. But what would it accomplish? She was a client. Passion of crime. Never do it. Not mention she had probably just tried to hack me. Bad girl.

 

I turned my back on her briskly—perhaps a little too rudely than I had intended—and marched robotically back behind my desk. My modified, faux-wooden swivel chair screaked in protest as all of my two-hundred twenty-five pounds hit it.

 

“Go home Lady. Contact your lawyer. Get a divorce, and rake your slime of a hubby for all he's got. You won't need photos.” I spat out. It might have been easy cash, but that's what turned me off: too easy. Too easy is cliché. Besides, domestic cases weren't my liter of PenzOil. They always seemed to screw you around. What could you expect? You were the agent pouring a heaping bucket of salt and peroxide into an always fresh gaping wound that was supposed to be two human beings in love. They didn't often forgive you for that. Not even if you had been brought into the picture by one party or the other. No. No. And did I mention `no'?

 

“No! No!” A cold, hard fire raged furiously behind those soft blue-grays twisting them into bubbling acid pools. So much for beauty. Now the beast? A demonic visage of hatred distorted her heavenly features. “This is not how it's supposed to be! I'm a real woman too!” Her voice was a screech. “I want you to kill him! Shoot him dead!” The slamming of her hands upon my desk frightened the small desk lamp and the unemployed paperweight residing there.

 

If there had been anyone else in the building that housed my office, I would have given her a good spanking for her childish outbreak, and flung her out the door, threatening to call Public Safety for solicitation of murder so loud, my neighbors would have come running to scoop the ten o'clock news at seven. But there wasn't.

 

Of the other nine tenants on the fifth floor of this firetrap the owner dared misrepresent as a building, I was the only one who didn't keep `regular' hours. Everyone else keep nine-to-five or even banker's hours. We were alone.

 

I sat behind my desk and scowled at her instead, but I did consider the spanking. A tantrum-throwing broad like this probably deserved it anyway. Still eyeing her I flicked on the lamp with a touch of my index finger. The room brightened visibly. The sun's last rays had been all but swallowed by the oncoming night.

 

If I'd smoked at all, I would have lit up. But androids don't. No lungs, no breath.

 

Murder is a felony. Duh. Premeditated, it is punishable by death for humans, at least in this city-state; and means The Chipper for androids.

 

Packing enough growl into my voice synthesizer—and bass-boosted to boot—to cause small animals to wet themselves, I leaned forward, “I'm a private investigator in case you forgot what was holo-etched on the front of my office door! Investigator, that means I investigate crimes lady: kidnappings, robberies, death threats and the like. I take on the occasional bodyguarding or bounty hunting jobs, if it suits me. I don't commit crimes. I'm not a hitman!”

 

My scolding, or rant, or combo of the two if you like, must have pulled her out of the kamikaze nose dive she was so intent on using to destroy lives with. She stood erect, as if struck by lightening. Her face fell back into the shadows where the small lamp's spill didn't light.

 

“I'm sorry,” came her soft whisper. A complete one-eighty. A whisper from the darkness. But from the darkness of the shadows or the darkness of her breast, I could not tell which. The monster that was there a mere moment before had dove beneath the calm, placating mask of beauty. What would it take to rile that demoness again, I wondered? Or had reason caught up with her? Not likely. Humans are complex machines. Maybe more so than androids. No, this wasn't a change of heart, just a change of tactics. The beast had revealed itself. It was my duty to send her packing!

 

The tiniest of sniffles emanated from the shadows, and I felt more than saw the tear roll down her cheek. I felt like a heel. But not so much that I was ready to jump to her beck and call. She was a dangerous storm promising to sweep up thrill-seekers foolish enough to step close enough.

 

She gracefully brought a sob under control before managed to choke off her words, “It's just that I'm a real woman too.”

 

I nodded.

 

“I know,” supposing that I understood something of what she must be going through. Had to be hard to have your man plugging into the furniture instead of you. Personally I've known my fair share of human females, and I can't say I understand why a man would prefer silicon to flesh and blood, especially one as sensual as this woman was.

 

But it takes all kinds. If what she claimed was true, her husband was a `Furniture Buffer'. For whatever reason, he preferred fake women to real. Freud would have had a field day with guys like him.

 

Enjoying sexual activity with androids was nothing new, nor illegal. Some of the original models were sexroids. There were clubs in the upper half of the western district that catered to android swapping and/or `WANking'—group orgies involving androids and their owner-partners all WANed together. Sketchy and questionable perhaps.

 

To want to murder over seemed extreme. I was convinced this woman just needed a night to sleep it off and a lawyer to get her through the proceedings once she had cried it into her pillow. Hell, she didn't even need a good lawyer; any half-assed, boozed-up, washed-out ambulance chaser would get her a decent alimony package.

 

“Look. I know this criminal lawyer in the Brentwood Enclave. He owes me a favor.” I punched in the lawyer's name into a keyboard I yanked from under the center of my desk. Neon lettering illuminated the paper-thin, transparent screen that covered the entirety of surface, and it spit out a printed copy of his commcode on a holo business-card. “You tell him I sent you, show him this card, and let him you need a divorce lawyer. He'll—“

 

“NO!” The demoness broke surface momentarily and was gone as quickly.

 

This broad was starting to turn my screws the wrong way and I had had enough. “Get it through your thick skull lady! I'm not gonna murder for you!” Far too late into this situation, I activated a recording program and repeated myself: “I am not going to commit murder for you. I am a legitimate business android!”

 

The program recorded—in realtime—the entirety of the room before me including dragonlady, whom I was hoping would continue her rant, so I could get it all down. Just in case things got uglier.

 

In truth, the only way it could get any uglier, was if she decided to deactivate me in very nasty way. In which case, Public Safety would be alerted via email to the file, which was being streamed to a special memory locker in my left foot, tagged and time-stamped. I was hoping I could dump into a secure off-site locker for the next year and delete it when nothing at all came of this.

 

While I didn't think she was carrying, I've encountered some gals packing some serious headaches, from where only their gynecologists perhaps knew. It would bode well to keep a hi-res sensor on her until I could get her out of the office.

 

“Then don't! I don't care. But whatever you do, you need to leave my office immediately. I think you should know that I am going to contact Public Safety. I have to report any and all criminal activity you understand.” I wasn't really going to call the cops on her, but she didn't need to know that. A little scare might do her a world of good; help her get her head on straight. “And solicitation is not a misdemeanor. You could spend some very heavy time flash-frozen in the Siberian Wastelands.” I put as much Hollywood-40s detective snarl into it as I could.

 

Her eyes drifted to the floor and unfocused as she stare in the general direction of the combo paper shredder-trash bot sitting silently in the corner. It was `unplugged'; sans batteries. If she was going trying to work her magic on it, she wasn't going to have any luck. I could sense she was unsure of herself and the situation.

 

“Time to go,” my tone was serious. She continued to stare beyond me, ignoring me as if I weren't there at all. Her nostrils flared several times, and her lips drew into an impossibly thin line. Several minutes passed, as I watched her stare into the corner. An urge to man-handle her out the door drew up on me like a shadow sliding up a wall over time. I all but stood when she finally came around. Her head started a slow bob and picked up speed; a bobble-head toy in reverse.

 

As she returned her gaze to me, the cold, fluorescent striplights of the office—set on autotimer—flickered on sleepily, bathing her face in their naked blue-white hum. The effect bleached her features in an unhealthy sheen.

 

“Alright. Alright.” It was unclear which of us she was speaking to. “You don't have to kill him.”

 

“Well geez, don't I feel relieved.” The sarcasm dripped like snot from a two-year's nose. “This doesn't change my feelings about taking you on as a client though. You need to leave.” As a BZ, I am blessed with a natural poker-face, as I have no real facial features to speak of—diametrically, when I do need or want to express myself facially, I have to take great pains—thus I was able to give her the mechanical equivalent of a cold shoulder without breaking a sweat.

 

“I want you to come home with me and document his android lovers.”

 

“You aren't hearing m—”

 

“Ten thousand.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“Fifteen!”

 

“What are you flapping your gums about!?”

 

“Money. Your fee. All for coming with me and recording what happens.”

 

“Hey lady—”

 

“THIRTY!” She leaned over my desk, placing her weight on the screen. It groaned and I thought for a moment it might crack. The front of her loose dress scandalously fell open revealing the kind of skin that should be sin. In her excitement, she was heaving again. I had the idea she was doing it on purpose. Rile the robot. That's what it was called. A little game

 

I surrendered. Thirty thousand was six times the going rate. I might as well ask to her to press the Reset button that will return me to Default Factory Settings, as refuse the money. Both equally insane. I'd do the job alright, but I didn't trust her. Not as far as I could chuck the moon base.

 

“You got a deal. But pictures only lady,” I warned her. She nodded. Still the same, the pout was back accompanied by an overly thoughtful look in her eye. I mentally shook my head. Nothing good was going to come out of this. For the hunk of cash she was willing to heave at me though, I'd take my chances just the same, and duck the horsehucky when it flew. And it would fly. Of that I had no doubts.

 

 

She called for her chauffer and sleek scotch-colored hover limo pulled up outside my building. I figured her for a rich floozy when she walked in, confirmed it when she started spitting like an ATM on the fritz, but how rich really didn't click in until she turned the inside of her left wrist up and called for her driver. The standard wafer-thin comm-device most Citizens have wasn't there: another seamless implant. Not a scar or bump to indicate it a thing.

 

The show was far from over though, because her driver doesn't take us directly to her place, say up in the Upper Southern Towers where so many of the city-states elite live in plush mansions that consume four to five towering building floors each. Oh no. He drives us to a small zeppelin port about ten miles out of town. We board and are flown privately to the Bollywood Estates Enclave another two hours back over the city. By then, the evening was in full swing and the city-state was on display as we passed over its bustling early evening ruckus, all aglow, winking a few million knowing lights of all colors.

 

On the trip over, she had tried to chat me up, as if we were old friends. I pointedly answered only when it would otherwise seem overly rude not to. She didn't seem to notice or didn't care. Either way she was desperate to get back on my good side.

 

 

We set down at a private field astride a sprawling palace looking for all the world like the Taj Mahal on some serious battery acid. The entirety of which was lit like a giant movie set.

 

Almost immediately we were greeted by a midget manservant in a tux, a purple Mohawk and enough cybernetics to start a small war. He held open the front door to the zep, bowed and welcomed home his `mistress'.

 

An electric golf cart brought us to the front door where no less than twenty servants bowed and welcomed her home. She lead the way through a foyer and two rooms I could only make wild guesses as to the function of, all the while, rattling off precise instructions to a select few of the staff who had followed us from the foyer like a litter of puppies, eager to do their mistress's bidding.

 

If I had been a human investigator, I'd have needed a rest, or a tall beer and a map to get back out by the time she even slowed for a breath. I had no idea whether I should even be following her. She hadn't deemed it necessary to communicate with me since we'd left the zeppelin. Perhaps this was payback for my treatment aboard the airship. I didn't think so though. It seemed more like the actions of a woman in-charge of a vast household, always on the move, with no time for play. Everything in its time and place. And my time and place wasn't at hand. So follow her I did. I had been paid in-full in the airship, so there wasn't much room for complaint.

 

“Um, I don't mean to be rude of inconsiderate, seeing how I'm on the payroll. But the sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can have your `evidence'. If you could just show me—”

 

“This way,” she commanded. I nearly oiled myself. The strength and no small amount of determination in her voice disturbed me. I followed.

 

Three more rooms—a labyrinth of antiques and the latest technology, from the painfully bright W@rh0ls to full-immersion VR rigs for parties of ten blew by, sucked out the sea by the tsunami of a woman that washed through it.

 

I had been the whole time. But commenting on the fact probably wouldn't have phased her. We arrived at a backyard patio through a portal of light. If you considered three hundred yards of marble—at the center of which slowly sloped a crystal blue pool—a `backyard patio'. Several very large, well-placed glow-trees rimmed the area illuminating it in a bright, yet soft light that reached out and caressed everyone and everything on the patio.

 

No small feat.

 

When Ms. Razie had spoken of a philandering husband, she'd grossly understated the situation. I figured the man had a few `closet models' he kept hidden until the wife was aware and played dress up with them at more `appropriate' times.

 

There had to be close to eighty androids in various states of dress, some engaged in activities that couldn't be mistaken for what they were, even at this distance. It was stunning, amusing and flat-out sad all at once. Part of my programming told me I just couldn't be seeing what I was. That maybe, just maybe, I was still sitting in my office, `nano'ed' to the gills, while some mafia thug I'd run afoul of, ran my programming through a sifter—a little payback.

 

Mrs. Razie turned to me. “Are you getting all this?” She had no irises, there was just a searing, holy rage blazing away. If she had been a construct-a-bot, her eyes would have lasered every silicon slut out there, reducing them to stinking, sticky pools of goo.

 

“And then some,” I nodded slowly, panning the scene with a keen sensor, mixing it with a healthy dose of still zooms. And that's when I spotted him, and him us.

 

From across the pool, naked to his well-formed, slightly-hairy-yet-perfectly-manicured chest, a Persian god rose from a bed of synthflesh and sighs. If I could had been born human, I would have asked—no, pleaded—to be uploaded into that body. I imagine a lot of human males probably thought the same thing, and there wouldn't be a chop of sexuality to it. He was simply perfect. Perfect tan, perfect hair, perfect smile, perfect posture… if he were any more perfect, he simply wouldn't have existed naturally.

 

The god smiled, waved and called her name. “Juliana!”

 

Unmoved, she held her ground like the Rock of Gibraltar, aura blazing indignantly.

 

He lightly jogged the hundred or so yards to us, not once breaking a sweat or panting.

 

Placing a light kiss on her cheek, his hands went to her arms in a loving manner. “Where have you been? I've been worried. Been trying to contact you for the past day and a half. You have never been gone so long without at least letting me know in advance.” His voice was filled with healthy concern, and no detectable anger. His facial features showed equal concern. He either was sincere or an excellent actor. I was for sincere myself. Something wasn't panning here.

 

She was stone cold. When no answer was forthcoming from her, he tried again, this time running a hand through her hair, “Juliana? Are you alright? You seem angr—… What's this?” He looked at her IR port in astonishment. “When did you have this installed? You didn't have it before you left.”

 

Come again? Newly installed IR port? I was able to snatch a quick look at it again before it fell back under the swell of her deluxe curls. Just as I remembered: no swelling or redness. Extremely well-healed for a port just installed! Something in my `gut' turned over. A feeling like someone walked over my kernel unhinged me. I stood eyeing them, openly suspicious—a throwback from my days in the military police—trying to process what it was that was so off with this picture.

 

The god turned to me, a stroke of light reflect-glinted in his both his eyes. Cyborged! His eyes were fake. Not just fake… cameras, the both of them. I took a peek over his shoulder at the gaggle of androids playing about the grounds, and I had the distinct feeling that if I were able to examine his back, it would reveal a couple of shoulder blade embedded hard flash lockers.

 

It hit me. Razie… Alex Razie. Android pr0n king.

 

I wanted to kick myself. Of course this guy has every flavor of android: their his bread and butter. I was starting to feel like a serious dupe.

 

“And who would this be?” His smile was gracious, and topped with a dollop of amusement, as if sharing some secret joke with her. He looked me up and down, after which his amusement changed to slight confusion. It was obvious he was sizing me up, maybe he was try-curious for a little male android action as well, but he couldn't figure out where he'd plug in. No thanks buddy. I don't run on AC/DC.

 

None of this was sitting well with me and I was considering turning off the cam, and refunding the lady's money—minus my retainer of course—with a warning to both of them. Not that I cared how these people flushed their relationship, but asking complete strangers to help clean the septic tank was right out.

 

“I'm Buzz, sir. Private Investigator. Your wife hired me earlier this evening.”

 

“My wife...” The words came out of his mouth with an amused touch. A pause, and then, a smile, “Did she now?”

 

Wait a minute. What the hell was going on here? “Sir, is this woman your wife?”

 

Ignoring my question, he returned to her, looking at her now down-turned face. “I don't get it. What's wrong babe?”

 

Nothing. The thought of spanking her crossed my mind for the second time that evening. This woman's derriere had a talent for playing it close. I was on the verge of giving her an earful for not playing it straight with me, but I was more interested in blowing the joint. First things first though, I needed to give this guy the zero-four-one-one. It was one thing to want to get off on electroshock therapy, it was quite another to be the target for murder.

 

I sighed audibly, crossing my arms.

 

My face soured. There was no easy way to let the cat out of the bag. It was a whirling dervish, howling to get out. “Sir, I'm afraid your… wife… came to me to…” To what? To have you plugged, and then possibly stuffed and mounted in one of the million rooms in the palace? Yeah. After taking incriminating photos of you polishing the toasters with your godhood of course. Right again. No. No. No. I didn't want to do this. It wasn't my place and I shouldn't have to.

 

“I think your wife needs to talk.”

 

Those were the words I started to say, in the hopes it would open the door for her. A door by which I would also take my leave of this obscene Alice in Wonderland playground. Between her husband and myself, I wasn't sure which one of us was Alice, but I had my convictions about who the Mad Hatter was.

 

But she beat me to the punch.

 

“I'm a real woman too.” It was a whisper, but it is was as clear as the night sky itself.

 

“But of course you are my dear. Now what is this all about?” Gentle exasperation climbed into his voice, yet, it was still whipped with far too much amusement. I don't want to be down on the insanely rich, but if this guy's gobloads of mazuma was behind his very loose hold on the reality of his wife's world, I can't say the dough which I'd been prepaid was any kind of consolation for this evening.

 

“I'm a real woman too.” A little louder. With a healthy heaping of conviction on top. If I'd had hackles to stand on the back of my neck and warn me, they would have, but it still wouldn't have been enough time to stop her.

 

She was a crack of thunder, and just enough of a bolt of lightening to zap a poor sucker like myself with enough juice into a stunned, albeit too-late, defensive posture. The flat of her left palm slapped against my chest plate with a resounding crack, knocking me back, as her right popped my slugthrower from the springloaded holster.

 

“I'm a real woman too!” she screeched leveling the gun at a wild-fear eyed god, who stumbled back flailed his hands up in front of himself, as if he could deflect a bullet with his childish imitation of a martial arts flick on fast-forward.

 

Frag me. This was some very bad crude. The slugs in the gun were a mix of stoppers that could take down both humans and androids. The android slugs were not to be messed with. If she thumbed though, at this range, they wouldn't bother to punch through him, they'd punch him straight out of this reality.

 

“H-H-Help! Me! Stop! Her!” he stumbled backwards, falling on his godlike ass. There was nothing around to protect him, all the patio equipment was closer to the pool than we were. Hell, even if there was, he just didn't seem to be putting the proper effort into trying to jump behind anything. Scrambling around on the marble surface he looked like a June bug trying to right itself. He was having little success, and she could have shot him easily at any point.

 

“Aren't! You supposed! T-T-To! Save Me!?”

 

His panicked voice caused some of the androids at the other end to take notice of the situation. Cautiously walking over, they seemed to understand something was amiss, but didn't have the programmed-brains to figure out. I half-expected them to stick their fingers in their mouths and just stare.

 

“Me!? Do I look like an Asimov type to you buddy? Where the hell is your security!?”

 

“Security!? What for?”

 

I was about to share a few choice words with him when the gun thundered. Looking up, I saw a few of the closer androids had finally stepped within range of the gun. Big mistake. Whether she knew it, or she was just looking to vent some frustration before she vented us, she was squeezing off very-well aimed shots. A bubbly, topless blonde and a husky Moscow SM-maven disintegrated in a fury of popping circuits and the odor of melting plastik.

 

Thank god there weren't any staff members around. There had been a man at the door back into the palace, but he'd made himself scarce when Mrs. Razie had pulled my gun. He had alerted several others in the house before she started firing, but I caught a glimpse of them all skittering back deep into the house for cover when she cut loose. I put a prayer in queue that they had enough brains between them to call enclave security while they were safe and sound hidden under the large Oriental rugs.

 

Damnit. The god was right. Whether I wanted to or not, I was going to have to protect him from my own client. Well, technically as she had broken the law, she wasn't my client any more. But would Public Safety see it that way? No, they'd just see that a legally armed android had provided an overly distraught Citizen with a cannon to blow away her cheating husband. Game over. Thank you sir for playing. Now would you be kind enough to throw yourself into this industrial-size chipper? And don't bother shutting yourself off before you do it.

 

When will I learn?

 

Another three androids were given their pink slips before the majority of them woke up to the danger and stopped in their tracks. She kept on firing anyway, turning bodily toward them. Ducks in a barrel.

 

I used the opening to go into a diving roll to Alex's side, crouching along with him. I had a plan and it was a long shot. If I could fool her into thinking there were two of me, she might not shoot for fear of making mistake. Or she might just plug the both of us. There was some small consolation in the fact that my video recorder was still on. Someone, probably the officers who were going to arrive far too late to be of any help that mattered, would be able to enjoy all this destruction in vivid, full-color, wide-screen, six-channel stereo. Joy.

 

“Here! Look at me!” I yelled, drawing her bead. From the damning look in his eyes, I thought the god was going to stand up and help her shoot me. Ignoring him and his struggle to free himself from the crazy android, I fired off a subterfuge program to her IR port that would blind her long enough for the second program piggybacked to it to do its job.

 

Her head whipped back, and then from side to side as if a giant hand had reached out and slapped her. I pushed the god over, rolling him a few feet toward the door. We weren't going to make it all the way there, but that was not the plan. We had no time for that. Instead, I changed places with him, leaving myself closest to the door. The god tried to jump up and run, but I forced him back down into the crouch.

 

She took a step back and then another. Her wrist went limp a moment as if the gun had suddenly weighed a ton, and then was as quickly back up. Dazed confusion turned to the demoness hatred I'd seen at the office, and the gun thundered exploding the marble patio from where I had just extracted us, and then again a little more to the left. She must have figured we were heading for the door. Gritty chunks kicked up by the gun, pelted us. We were both covered in a sickly gray powder. The god wet himself.

 

My hand went to the back of my right leg, which was planted out in front, so I could access the spare gun hidden there. I didn't want to pop it if I didn't have to though. Only as a last resort. Only if I really had to.

 

Juliana blinked, shaking her head. Her vision was returning. The moment of truth was either going to see her confused or us eating some serious hot lead. And the way she had whacked those androids, if my program didn't take hold like I wanted, I was not so confident there would be much of us left to identify.

 

Catching us in her peripheral vision, she whipped around, arm steel-girder rigid. But it wasn't `us' she was seeing, but rather two of me. In fact, if she caught sight of the androids—whether they were currently decorating the patio in chips and wiring or not—or staff members, or even if Public Safety put an appearance any time before this went too far south, she would still be seeing me. I'd hijacked her vision, overlaying that of anyone else with my own.

 

Her confusion was immediately apparent as the weapon whipped between us like a deadly metronome, ready to strike with a very deadly beat.

 

Now if only Public Safety would kindly get here and diffuse the situation, I'd be one happy android. I pinged the local wireless WAN for hyper broadband. No traffic. No traffic, no cops.

 

But that wasn't to be the worst of it.

 

In my rush to save his assets, I'd neglected to let Mr. Razie in on the plan. I'd kind of hoped he would keep his mouth shut, but apparently he found his cajones and decided they were made of titanium. Standing, he confronted Juliana with a: “Stop this immediately!”

 

The program affects the vision, not auditory aspects. Juliana caught on. She leveled the gun at his head.

 

Oh yeah, that worked.

 

Wasting no timel, I clipped his legs out from under him with a clothesline maneuver just as a shot blew a hole in the palace of pleasure twenty yards behind him. Damn, she still had plenty of android stoppers.

 

Jig was up, time to put an end to this. I commanded the gun to pop into my hand, which was set with a soft alert to Public Safety. If they hadn't received word from the staff yet, they'd get one now. And calmly, very professionally, put three slugs into Juliana torso.

 

“I am a real woman too…” she gurgled and promptly dropped-sprawled to the ground lifeless.

 

Indeed you are, a real woman too. But first and foremost, you are…were a Real.Woman2. Trademark, all rights reserved, copyright and all that BS. Blah blah.

 

Damnit.

 

A searing destabilization program knocked me flat as the blinding beam of a Public Safety mancopter stabbed down pinning me and the god, who lay moaning on the ground—a pretty good knot on the back of his head for his earlier efforts to get us both pounded.

 

I was effectively now an observer. Not that it really mattered. Juliana was down—three neat closely clustered holes in her chest. One hit her CPU and the other two her dual graphics chips. Even if I had missed her CPU, she would have been effectively blinded and I was confident we could have escaped.

 

Sprawled on the marble like an angry child's tossed ragdoll, half her chest exposed to the night sky and the harsh beam of the light, she was still radiantly beautiful. Almost human. Curse? Blessing? Just damn crazy. Machines aren't meant to be that human. So maybe that's my curse too.

 

 

Several hours later, after review of the memory locker from my foot, I was released with a harsh warning and fines. The god was thankful though. It looked as if he might balk for a while, claiming I'd come in and made a bad situation worse, but the detectives in charge of the case knocked a little sense into him. Even if they weren't on my side, they knew that they'd have his body on their hands and a whack android prowling the streets if it hadn't been for my intervention. One of the reasons I was let off, undoubtedly begrudgingly, with just a warning instead of having my licensed pulled. I was no fool though; they'd be watching. To see if I screwed up again. I could accept that. I don't have a choice.

 

In the end, I came away with close to the full amount of the money Juliana Razie had wired me. Somehow, as I plodded down the concrete stairs out the front door of the station house, it seemed a small consolation. Android abuse wasn't the kind of problem that went away with a few bullets. It was a monster that came back to bite people in the keister. Until humans decided to their creation seriously, there were several million ticking time bombs out there.

 

I stopped in front of a taxi awaiting customers, and looked up and down the empty boulevard. Not a sane soul to be seen. It was battleship gray and just as lonely in the wee hours of the morning. A feeling of resignation blanketed my circuits like a bothersome dust.

 

The cabbie ducked down looking impatiently out the passenger-side window. I shook my head and waved him on.

 

He threw his hands up, rolled his eyes exasperated, and roared off in a vapor cloud of steam.

 

A feeling of half-regret surfaced as I watched him go, but it was mercifully torpedoed. Probably for the best. I was in a foul mood and unable to function within proper parameters. I would have made a mean drunk.

 

Dropping myself into a backgrounded systems check, meant to keep me preoccupied for the term of my impending long hike home, I wrapped the city around my shoulders like a trenchcoat, and walked into the silent, pre-twilight hours.